step up here."
Mr. Potter nodded very slightly, and McAllister, taking the hint, stepped forward.
"Is this your prisoner, officer?"
"Shure, that's him, right enough," answered Tom.
"Discharged," said the magistrate.
Mr. Potter shook hands with his honor, who smiled good-humoredly and winked at McAllister.
"Now, Welch, try and behave yourself. I'll let you off this time, but if it happens again I won't answer for the consequences. Go home."
Mr. Potter whispered something to the baffled officers, who grinned sheepishly, and then, seizing McAllister's arm, led our astonished friend out of the court-room.
As they whirled uptown in the closed automobile which had been waiting for them around the corner, Mr. Potter explained that after sending the letter he had felt far from satisfied, and had bethought him of calling up Mrs. Winthrop on the telephone. Her polite surprise at the lawyer's inquiries had fully convinced him of his error, and after evading her questions with his usual caution, he had taken immediate steps for his client's release—steps which, by reason of the lateness of the hour, he could not communicate to the unhappy McAllister.
"What has become of the fugitive Welch," he ended, "remains a mystery. The police cannot imagine where he has hidden himself."
"I wonder," said McAllister dreamily.
It was just seven o'clock when McAllister, arrayed, as usual, in immaculate evening dress, sauntered into the club. Most of the men were back from their Christmas outing; half a dozen of them were engaged in ordering dinner.
"Hello, Chubby!" shouted someone. "Come and have a drink. Had a pleasant Christmas? You were at the Winthrops', weren't you?"
"No," answered McAllister; "had to stay right in New York. Couldn't get away. Yes, I'll take a dry Martini—er, waiter, make that two Martinis. I want you all to have dinner with me. How would terrapin and canvas-back do? Fill it out to suit yourselves, while I just take a look at the Post."
He picked up a paper, glanced at the head-lines, threw it down with a sigh of relief, and lighted a cigarette. At the same moment two policemen in civilian dress were leaving McAllister's apartments, each having received at the hands of the impassive Frazier a bundle containing a silver-mounted revolver and a large bottle full of an unknown brown fluid.
McAllister's dinner was a great success. The boys all said afterward that they had never seen Chubby in such good form. Only one incident marred the serenity of the occasion, and that was a mere trifle. Charlie Bush had been staying over Christmas with an ex-Chairman of the Prison Reform Association, and being in a communicative mood insisted on talking about it.
"Only fancy," he remarked, as he took a gulp of champagne, "he says the prisons of the city are in an abominable condition—that they're a disgrace to a civilized community."
Tomlinson paused in lifting his glass. He remembered his host's opinion, expressed two nights before and desired to show his appreciation of an excellent meal.
"That's all rot!" he interrupted a little thickly. "'S all politics. The Tombs is a lot better than most second-class hotels on the Continent. Our prisons are all right, I tell you!" His eyes swept the circle militantly.
"Look here, Tomlinson," remarked McAllister sternly, "don't be so sure. What do you know about it?"
The Mystery of Room Five
(Fred M White)
GERALD NETTLESHIP, private inquiry agent and general investigator, pending a promised appointment in connection with the Secret Service, and whilom a public schoolboy, regarded his pretty wife Ella with frank admiration. For she apparently had solved part of the problem that was worrying him sorely. If they could get hold of this five hundred pounds then the matter of the furnished flat they so greatly coveted would be solved, and they would have a house of their own instead of passing the approaching Christmas in lodgings. It had to be a cash transaction because the outgoing tenant—a friend of Nettleship’s—was an Australian returning to his ranch after the war, and wanted the money. And Ella Nettleship was explaining how the desired sum might be obtained, and because she too had earned her living, till Gerald married her, in a private detective office, he listened with all due respect. He had been away in Manchester on business for the last week, and this new development had come as a startling surprise to him.
“Directly I read the notice in the Times,” she said, “I went round and saw Sir Percival Kennelly at once. Very fortunately he was at home, and when I told him who you were and what we were both doing he was awfully nice—quite a dear, in fact? He at once agreed to give us a chance of getting to the bottom of the mystery, and offered a voluntary fifty pounds towards expenses. So, as you were away, I went down to The Grange at Overstrands and put in two days, investigating matters. And I believe, I really believe, Gerry dear, that I am on the track of the miscreants. As to the occult side of the mystery, we can rule that out at once.”
“Of course,” Nettleship laughed. “By Jove, 500 pounds reward! And nothing much in the way of expense. Good Heavens! I’d like to see you presiding over the turkey in our own flat at Christmas. Would you mind running over the details once more, Ellie?”
Ella proceeded to explain that the Grange at Overstrands was the property of Sir Percival Kennelly, a somewhat impoverished Baronet, who owned some considerable property on the East Coast, where he had sunk all he could raise in a golf course that had splendid possibilities, and that he was using the Grange as a dormy house in connection with the golf course, and he had obtained a license to sell all kinds of drinks. Until the course was perfect, and he could devote the beautiful old Grange for the use of golfers alone, he ran it as an ordinary public-house, with a bar where anybody could procure liquid refreshment. The house was in charge of a steward called Chiffner, an old retainer, who was quite beyond suspicion, and yet for some time past the most extraordinary things had been happening in the bedrooms of the old house after the golfing guests had retired for the night, so that the place was getting a bad name, and it looked as if much harm was being done to the links that a little time back appeared likely to become so popular. As this was a serious matter to Sir Percival, he had offered the reward of 500 pounds in the Times to any one who could solve the mystery. And before calling in the police he had offered Ella Nettleship a chance of earning the money wherewith to consummate the dream of spending the forthcoming Christmas in the flat upon which her heart was set.
So she had gone down to Overstrands ostensibly as a golfer, and had spent two nights in the Grange, where she had made her business known to the steward Chiffner, whom her detective instinct told her that she could implicitly trust. And there she ascertained that all the trouble arose in Room Five, and nowhere else. And in Room Five, sooner or later, Ella was going to pass the night. It was in this ancient apartment with its old portraits and pictures that the series of outrages had taken place. There were stories of ghosts and shadowy figures in the dead of night, and tales of visitors frightened out of their wits, to say nothing of various valuables missing, all of which was playing the very deuce with the golf club. And on no occasion had the locked door of Room Five been tampered with.
“What’s the next move?” Nettleship asked, when he had mastered the story. “Shall we go down there in Christmas week on the suggestion of playing
